


Bawling Games

by Piarelei



Series: Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24017704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piarelei/pseuds/Piarelei
Summary: It’s a nest of dread building up at the back of his throat. A plea given to the darkest hour of the night. A wariness in a sea of blue. A forcefulness against the bounce of the mattress.A flinch when Steve reaches for the salt.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: Tumblr Prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1717894
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Bawling Games

**Author's Note:**

> TW : Discussion of abuse, after-effect of abuse, homophobic slur.

It’s a nest of dread building up at the back of his throat. A plea given to the darkest hour of the night. A wariness in a sea of blue. A forcefulness against the bounce of the mattress. 

A flinch when Steve reaches for the salt. 

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, and he doesn’t want to be already aware of it, but he still is; the answer is no. 

And Billy, strong, savage, vengeful Billy, simply answers “Yes”. 

It sounds horribly wrong. It sounds like the rumble of an avalanche in summer. Shy. Impossible. 

“You sure?”

And Billy shrugs, takes a step back, wipes his hands off tomato juice on his jeans. 

“I should go. Neil will lose his shit if I don’t come home in time to eat Susan’s shit.”

And he goes. And Steve lets him. He doesn’t want to, but he feels helpless, fingertips already going through empty air, unreachable shoulders. He stays there, silent and coiled in an aborted movement and tries to quiet everything. 

It works. For a little while. 

But then Steve playfully shoves Billy on the sofa and Billy goes, wide-eyed and uncharacteristically pliant. Tenses for a second. Tries to make it look as if nothing is wrong. 

He shrugs the unease with a roll of his shoulder, smothers Steve’s burgeoning question with a kiss and pulls him down by his belt. And Steve is unable to fight him. He goes. He kisses. He touches. He unbuttons. He is about to caress, hand on the warm skin of Billy’s ribs when, 

“You can go harder if you want to. I like it.” 

His voice his firm, controlled; Steve hears the panic of it all the same, the fright sewn at the seams.

Steve freezes. The dread that was just a build-up against his pharynx explodes forward, and he pushes himself up, and then down, swallows against the rush of horror. 

And Billy, awfully, awfully, continues.

“You can hit me if you want to. I can take it. I know that it must be getting boring right now.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say; he just stares. And stares. And stares. And Billy blushes red, and leaves. And leaves. And leaves. 

He comes back, eventually. Steve finds him in front of his TV, legs sprawled and mouth full of pizza. 

“You’re trespassing,” he says. 

“Big word,” answers Billy and Steve drops his keys and bag on the floor, curls against his side and buries his nose in the crook of his neck. 

They don’t talk about it. 

They don’t talk about it and Steve vibrates with curiosity and fear, finds his hands ten times more careful when they outline the shape of Billy. 

And Billy gets more pinched by the day. He grunts and nods and snaps and storms off when Steve asks him if he’s alright. 

One day, they kiss and something is wrong. Something is wrong because Billy is a rigid frame above Steve, unyielding and creaking at the joints. He rises and falls, hands like butterflies, not ever stopping to settle somewhere. He tugs Steve hand’s to his throat. 

“You can stop holding back on me. I’m good. I can take everything you give me.”

Steve feels tears blur his sight with the suddenness of a lunar eclipse. Billy freezes above him, seemingly stunned into silence. 

And Steve, clumsy as he never felt, tries to tug at the knot in his throat, tries to unravel the words that are tangled there. 

“Why do you want me to hurt you? Is that what you really want?”

Billy takes a hitching breath. Shrugs. 

“Never mind, then.”

He tries to get off Steve’s lap; they flail when Steve tugs him back. They end up side by side on the bed. 

Steve looks at the ceiling and tries not to cry. 

“Doesn’t it get boring?” asks Billy.

Steve tries to look at him; he only partially succeeds, feels water run to his temple. 

“What?” and it’s very soft, spoken between them with a careful mouth, like everything would shatter if he were too loud. 

Billy thumps him on the shoulder, makes a try at a smile. He ends up with an awful grimace plastered to his face. He deflates and turns toward Steve, eyes bright with what Steve doesn’t want to think is fear. 

“The sex,” and it’s almost a question. 

“Not for me,” Steve answers and then flounders with a rush of thoughts, “is it for you? Is that why? Do… Do you like it?”

Billy is all pinched around the mouth, stays silent for a long while. 

“But don’t you want to?”

Steve gapes at him.

“No!” Billy flinches back and Steve tries to exhale slowly, almost silently. “No, I don’t want to hit you. I… Like our… It’s good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They share a beat of silence. 

“Do you? Is that a thing that you like?” And something twist deep in his gut when he says it, when there is something wild and untamed that flashes through Billy’s eyes. 

Billy opens his mouth to speak, seems to lose his words as he considers it, clams up slowly, visibly. He sits up. 

“No, I’m good.” And his voice is a chill going down Steve’s back. 

Very carefully, he reaches out, touches his shoulder with prudent fingertips. 

“Are you? Really?”

Billy stays immobile, still as a rock, cold as a mountain and Steve follows him, presses his lips on the tan of his arm. It makes Billy deflates like a hot air ballon upon landing. 

He sighs, a full-bodied exhalation, taps a cigarette out of his pack. Steve stands up and goes to crack the window open, lets the buzz of summer invade the room. When he turns back, Billy is seated against the headboard, jeans still unbuckled and tank top ruffled, an unlit cigarette hanging at his lips. He doesn’t reach for his firelighter and Steve goes to him, sits at his feet. 

Billy looks at Steve for half a second before turning to the ceiling, melting against the pillows. 

“There was this dude, in Cali.”

He shrugs.

“We hooked up a few times. It was good. Convenient, I guess.”

Billy stops for a moment and Steve finds his ankle and squeezes it in encouragement. 

“It got regular you know. He was ok. Fun sometimes. We surfed together.”

Billy frowns, looks down at his hands in his lap. 

“At one point, he just got bored I guess. He would give me a slap sometimes. He liked to choke me or something. Spit on my face. It kept things from being… You know, boring or some shit.”

Steve feels words stick to his palate, unable to spit them out. 

“So, you know, we’ve been doing this… thing, for a while know.” He shrugs once more. “Thought you would like to change things a little. Keep things interesting.”

“Oh god,” Steve says and there is horror building up in his eyes. “Oh god. You thought I wouldn’t want you if I you weren’t my punching ball.”

Billy shrugs, pulls his cigarette out of his mouth. 

“You ain’t no fag, Harrington. I saw what you like. I ain’t cute like Wheeler.”

“Oh God,” and Steve shrugs his prudence like a heavy drape and clambers over Billy’s legs, ends up over his lap, fingers digging in his shoulders. “You ain’t cute for sure, but I like you, Billy. I don’t give a shit about Nancy, but I give at least two shits for you. I don’t wanna hurt you.”

Billy meets his eyes and there is a shine of terror in them. Steve leans forward and tries to kiss it away; presses his tongue against insecurities, tries to have them melt like buter in the sun. 

Steve doesn’t quite know if he’s successful. But when he pulls back, there is a lightness to Billy’s frame, a softness to the purse of his mouth. 

Nothing is settled. But they’re okay. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find the original post on [Tumblr](https://zoupia.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> The prompt, by anonymous: Steve finds out that Billy had a secret abusive older boyfriend in California who wasn’t very kind to him during sex.
> 
> If you ever want me to write something, do not hesitate to leave me [prompts](https://zoupia.tumblr.com/ask), I take them gladly.


End file.
